Citizenship plan lacks GOP support in Texas

Updated 11:11 pm, Thursday, February 14, 2013

AUSTIN - The nation's growing Hispanic voter base may be driving the immigration debate in Washington. But in GOP-held Texas congressional districts, it has hardly made a mark.

While some top Republican leaders have endorsed a pathway to citizenship for the nation's 11 million undocumented residents, the loudest GOP voices to emerge against the proposal in recent weeks have come from Texas congressmen who hail from districts with large Hispanic constituencies.

Of the state's 11 Republican-held congressional districts with Hispanic populations of at least 25 percent, seven are represented by lawmakers who have already ruled out supporting any amnesty plan, according to Express-News interviews and analysis of their recent public statements.

Very little incentive

That divide increasingly concerns those involved in drafting reform legislation. They fear the demographic shifts pressuring Republicans to compromise at the national level may carry little incentive for conservative legislators in their districts back home.

"We've been down this road before with politicians promising to enforce the law in return for amnesty," said U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, whose northern San Antonio district is 28 percent Hispanic, according to U.S. Census data. "Granting amnesty actually compounds the problem by encouraging more illegal immigration."

The pathway to citizenship - or "amnesty," to borrow the preferred term among its opponents - is a central plank in the reform proposals put forth last month both by President Barack Obama and a bipartisan group of U.S. senators led by John McCain, R.-Ariz., and Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

The details of both plans remain hazy. But the senators' proposal requires the nation's borders be declared secure, before undocumented residents could begin a tough process that would require them to learn English, pay back taxes and pass a background check before attaining citizenship.

So far, Texas' Democratic congressional caucus has widely endorsed the proposal. And earlier this week, a group of moderate Texas Republicans from the law enforcement, faith and business communities urged their own party's representatives in Congress to engage in a serious debate.

'Strongly opposed'

But if public rhetoric is any indication, lawmakers such as Houston-area Republican Rep. John Culberson have already made up their minds.

"I am strongly opposed to amnesty for illegal immigrants," he says on his website. "Respect for the rule of law is a hallmark of our democracy, and one of the reasons America has the largest immigrant populations in the world."

Culberson, whose Houston-area constituency is more than one-third Hispanic, did not respond to requests for an interview.

His stance mirrors that of his caucus colleagues facing similar demographic trends in districts clustered primarily in the Texas Panhandle and in suburban Dallas and Houston. They are joined by the state's two Republican U.S. senators, John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, both of whom have spoken out against the citizenship pathway.

After last year's redistricting process, many of those Texas Republicans are now ensconced in even safer conservative districts. The greatest danger to their incumbency comes not from a future Democratic opponent but from an even more conservative primary challenger, said Matt Mackowiak, an Austin-based GOP consultant.

"The question is where are they most vulnerable – among their constituents at large or their conservative voter base in a primary," he said.

Ted Poe, chairman of the House Immigration Subcommittee, represents a 30 percent Hispanic district in the Houston area. He did not respond to requests last week to clarify his stance.

But after endorsing an expanded guest worker program last year, he became the subject of a withering campaign from the conservative, anti-reform group ALIPAC, who accused Poe of throwing in his lot with the "illegal alien invasion and amnesty supporters."

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